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Russia Probe

by Kristin Amerling, Managing Director of Lanthorn Strategies, consultant to ACS, former chief counsel to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and former chief investigative counsel to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

by Barbara McQuade, Professor from Practice, University of Michigan Law School, and former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan

Last week’s comprehensive paper from the Brookings Institution analyzing the case for obstruction of justice against President Donald J. Trump makes a compelling case that the President has violated the law. The report takes a deliberately narrow focus, and it likely just scratches the surface of the investigation being conducted by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III. Mueller will no doubt want to conduct a complete investigation to learn the broader picture of Russian involvement in the 2016 election, so that if there is a case for impeachment, even the Republican-controlled House of Representatives will be unable to ignore it.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has a perplexingly contradictory view of civil rights law when it comes to transgendered people.

On the one hand, he is enthusiastic about prosecuting murder cases in which the victims were allegedly targeted because of their gender identity. On the other hand, he went out of his way to give employers a green light to discriminate against transgender people in the workplace; rejected the Obama administration interpretation that nondiscrimination laws require schools to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice; and defended Donald Trump's half-baked tweet in favor of banning transgender troops.

The backtracks on transgender protections are among several stark and abrupt reversals from practices during the Obama era that have come under Sessions's watch. One on level, that's not so surprising, coming from the attorney general for a president who on Monday described himself, accurately, as "very opposite" from his predecessor.

There are significant questions as to whether President Trump obstructed justice since taking office. We do not yet know all the relevant facts, and any final determination must await further investigation, including by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. But as we demonstrate in a new paper, “Presidential obstruction of justice: The case of Donald J. Trump,” the public record contains substantial evidence that President Trump attempted to obstruct the investigations into Michael Flynn and Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election through various actions, including the termination of James Comey.

“The Events of recent weeks have eerily reminded me of those Watergate days,” stated William D. Ruckelshaus, who resigned as President Nixon’s Deputy Attorney General after refusing to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox.

Ruckelshaus joins a growing chorus of Republican advice-givers concerned about Trump’s reported desire to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller. His opinion piece in today’s New York Times (“A ‘Saturday Night Massacre’ Veteran Offers Trump Some Advice) tracks a comparison of Nixon and Trump created by the ACS.